At 4 p.m. on a Wednesday, about 20 elementary students swarm into the lobby of after-school education program Boys and Girls Club of Metro Denver headquarters in Commerce City. They’re abuzz with post-school energy, eating Cheetos, playing punch buggy and arguing over who could beat who in a foot race.
The challenge for after-school programs like this is how to channel that frenetic energy into furthering their education.
That’s the work for employees here, a branch of the national Boys and Girls Clubs of American that charges just $2 a year per student. (Ninety percent of the children who are enrolled in the club are from low-income families.) For employees like reading specialist Shay Cardenas, ingratiating a love for reading might be tricky, if not for an ace in the hole.
That secret weapon is Accelerated Reader, a reading program that aims to maintain if not increase a student’s reading level, which is measured by grade, month over month.
“Kids can lose one or two months (of their reading level) over the summer,” said Gail Bransteitter, the director of marketing for Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver, one of about 50 programs receiving funds from The Denver Postap Season to Share campaign this year. “But it’s not hard to get kids to participate in stuff as long as there’s a fun reward.”
To that end, Accelerated Reader itself disguises reading as a fun challenge. It calibrates students’ reading levels based on an initial test, and then makes a game out of binge reading, assigning books a point value based on their level of difficulty. For example, Susan Miller’s illustration-filled “Cowboy Up,” is worth 0.6 points, the lowest value, while the final Harry Potter book, rated at a seventh-grade reading level, clocks in at a library-high 34 points.
The real carrot for kids are the prizes and parties they earn with them. The class hosts weekly, monthly and annual parties that the children, who range in age from 6 and older, can attend if they meet their goals. Kids can also earn prizes like socks and hoodies.
Then, there are the backpacks. “Finding Dory,” “Star Wars,” “Frozen” — these colorful bags sit tantalizingly atop a bookshelf, well out of grasp for the tiny readers unless they can claim the title of Top Reader of the Month.
In the third week of October, 8-year-old Harlie Rose, who had her eye on the “Finding Dory” backpack, guarded the honor jealously, moving a cut-out with her name on it up to its rightful peak on a chart that measured students’ progress.
But aside from the joy of snagging a new bag, had the Accelerated Reader program instilled the inherent value in reading to its students at Commerce City’s Boys and Girls Club?
“I finally get why people like reading,” 12-year-old Cristianna B., the Reader of the Week, said. “It helps people get better jobs that make more money.”
When asked whether she enjoyed the act of reading more than she used to, she thought for a few seconds.
“I like it makes your imagination grow,” she said.
Name: Boys and Girls Club Denver
Address: 2017 W. 9th Avenue, Denver, CO 80204
In operation since: 1961
Number of employees: 225
Annual budget: $16 million
Percentage of funds that goes directly to client services: 75.7 percent
Number of clients served last year: 10,000